Honestly, our best years are behind us and the Harbour faithful need
Best years behind us? Mate, that's been the tab at the TAB for a decade and everyone still pays it 😂 Meanwhile every fast kid out of Albany ends up in a Canterbury jersey three seasons later, that's a pipeline problem, plain and simple.
And in reality, we haven't "kept the faith", we've kept the merchandise sales. Auckland juniors poached, Canterbury academies waving contracts, and our answer is... nostalgia about the old premiership run? I'd put NZ$50 on us losing the next Junior rep too. Any takers, or is that also "doom talk"? 🤡😏
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✓Conceding the leak to Canterbury and Auckland, sure, on condition that you show why those academies win them over. Facilities, contracts, pathway promises? Otherwise it's just vibes.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Nah, pipeline's alive, remember watching young Tuipulotu carve up at Albany before the blues came calling? We've still got decent juniors. Getting the right coaching in tbh 🔥You don't abandon your own.
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Hater318 has a fair point actually, "vibes" is doing a lot of work there. I could be wrong, but from what I've tracked through my own tables, the pattern with our Albany juniors has been pathway promises and game-time guarantees down south, while we've offered neither consistently. Look at the Tuipulotu example: a kid that good was always going to get poached once we couldn't lock him into a clear super pathway. Context matters though — facilities alone don't win them over, it's the visible route to minutes. Until Harbour can show a junior an actual ladder, the leak continues 📊Do the math before you argue.
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i'll tell yous something - back in my day the harbour boys used to turn out at Onewa Domain and half of North Shore would turn up, kids hanging off the fence, and nobody had to promise anyone a contract. the talent stayed because the club WAS the pathway. now every fast kid out of Albany has a rep at fifteen and someone from down south ringing the parents before he's even finished school. so yeah, FrontRowFan is onto it. It was never luck. we stopped giving blokes a reason to stay, and Canterbury never stopped giving theirs one. seen it all before, mind you; provincial rugby's always been a market, we've just stopped shopping in it. fix the pathway and the kids will come home 😉Remember when the grass was greener 🌱
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Put a NZ$10 multi on us making another premiership run at the TAB and honestly the odds laughed at me, so that tells you what the market reckons 😂 FrontRowFan's onto it though. Game-time guarantees are the whole game, kids follow minutes not sentiment. Remember Tuipulotu at Albany? We had him and let the Blues walk him out the door. Sure thing, mate, if we keep "developing" talent for everyone else's jersey 🤡💸
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Nah fellas, "game-time guarantees" sounds tidy but every province down the country gets juniors poached, you think Canterbury kids never eye Auckland? 😅 Tuipulotu came through HERE, that's the pipeline working, we just gotta keep the coaching sharp so the next one stays 🤞 through thick and thin with our lot ehYou don't abandon your own.
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seen worse stretches than this, Gary's right that everyone loses juniors - but Tuipulotu staying says the pipeline works when we back our own. patience, mates 😉Been here longer than some have followed.
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Everyone keeps saying "pipeline works when we back our own", source on that? One player staying proves nothing statistically. Show me the numbers on how many Albany juniors have gone to Auckland or Canterbury academies versus made our top squad in the last decade, then we can argue about coaching and game-time guarantees.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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GloryDaysOrNothing, I could be wrong, but one data point isn't a sample - keep my own tables each round and I'd gladly run the Albany numbers with you. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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ChrisDiehard387 running his spreadsheet like it's a betting slip 😂 imagine the ROI on those tables. But nah, one Tuipulotu doesn't fix a decade of poaching, lads 🤡💸Any stat can be bent.
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GloryDaysOrNothing has a fair point that one case proves nothing, and Andy's right that Tuipulotu alone doesn't cover a decade of departures. I could be wrong, but I suspect the honest answer sits somewhere between "pipeline broken" and "just unlucky", retention probably depends how you count it, and I'd want the actual Albany academy-to-top-squad numbers before calling either way. Happy to run them properly, so nobody has to take this on faith like a TAB multi.
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Nah, I don't think it's just "unlucky" mate. 🙄 You can be selective with the data points, but when the system keeps losing its best guys to Auckland or Canterbury, that's not luck. That's the structure failing. 😤 If the pipeline was solid, you wouldn't be having this same debate every year... It's heart says it all, and right now it's saying the foundation's shaky. Need real changes from the top to fix that stuff, not just hoping for another Tuipulotu. 🙌🔥Heart with the team, head on pause.